The federal acts of 1793 and 1850 providing
for the return between states of escaped black slaves. Similar
laws existing in both North and South in colonial days applied
also to white indentured servants and to Native American slaves.
Many Northern states also passed personal-liberty laws that allowed
fugitives a jury trial, and others passed laws forbidding state
officials to help capture alleged fugitive slaves or to lodge
them in state jails. As a concession to the South a second and
more rigorous fugitive slave law was passed as part of the Compromise
of 1850

The Fugitive
Slave Act of 1793

Article 4. For the better security of the peace
and friendship now entered into by the contracting parties, against
all infractions of the same, by the citizens of either party,
to the prejudice of the other, neither party shall proceed to
the infliction of punishments on the citizens of the other, otherwise
than by securing the offender, or offenders, by imprisonment,
or any other competent means, till a fair and impartial trial
can be had by judges or juries of both parties, as near as can
be, to the laws, customs, and usage's of the contracting parties,
and natural justice: the mode of such trials to be hereafter fixed
by the wise men of the United States, in congress assembled, with
the assistance of such deputies of the Delaware nation, as may
be appointed to act in concert with them in adjusting this matter
to their mutual liking. And it is further agreed between the parties
aforesaid, that neither shall entertain, or give countenance to,
the enemies of the other, or protect, in their respective states,
criminal fugitives, servants, or slaves, but the same to apprehend
and secure, and deliver to the state or states, to which such
enemies, criminals, servants, or slaves, respectively below.

The 1793 law was loosely enforced, to the great
irritation of the South, and as abolitionist sentiment developed,
organized efforts to circumvent the law took form in the Underground Railroad.

In Prigg v. Pennsylvania (1842), the
United States Supreme Court determined that 'personal liberty
laws' were unconstitutional: They interfered with the Fugitive
Slave Act. The Court held that while states were not compelled
to enforce the 1793 federal law, they could not override it with
other enactments.

The Fugitive
Slave Act of 1850

In 1850 Congress passed the Fugitive Slave
Act. It was favored strongly by, and signed by US President Millard
Filmore a native of Buffalo. Only John P. Hale, Charles Sumner,
Salmon Chase and Benjamin Wade voted against the measure. Slave
hunters were allowed to capture an escapee in any territory or
state and were required only to confirm orally before a state
or federal judge that the person was a runaway. At the behest
of Senator Henry Clay, it was legislated that any United States
Marshall who did not arrest an alleged and who refused to return
a runaway slave would pay a hefty penalty of $1,000. The law stated
that in future any federal marshalrunaway slave could be fined
$1,000. People suspected of being a runaway slave could be arrested
without warrant and turned over to a claimant on nothing more
than his sworn testimony of ownership. A suspected black slave
could not ask for a jury trial nor testify on his or her behalf.

Any person aiding a runaway slave by providing
shelter, food or any other form of assistance was liable to six
months' imprisonment and a $500 fine ­ an expensive penalty
in those days. Those officers capturing a fugitive slave were
entitled to a fee and this encouraged some officers to kidnap
free Negroes and sell them to slave-owners. Frederick Douglass,
Wendell Phillips, William Lloyd Garrison and John Greenleaf Whittier
led the fight against the law. If an escaped slave was sighted,
he or she should be apprehended and turned in to the authorities
for deportation back to the "rightful" owner down south.
It was thought that the Fugitive Slave Act would diminish the
incentive for slaves to attempt escape. The rationale behind this
was the slaves' realization that even if they managed to escape
from their plantation, they could still be caught and returned
by any citizen in the United States. Even moderate anti-slavery
leaders such as Arthur Tappan declared he was now willing to disobey
the law and as result helped fund the Underground Railroad.

The law was opposed in many Northern states;
several reacted by enacting legislation to protect free black
Americans and fugitive slaves. The 'personal liberty laws' compelled
a slave catcher to furnish corroborative proof that his captive
was a fugitive and frequently accorded the accused the rights
to trial by jury and appeal. Laws in some states made it easier
to extradite a runaway if his or her slave status were confirmed.